Zustan Doma - Stay Home

Directed by Oliviero Plazzi Marzotto

Length: 13:03
Producer: Markéta Klimesova
Editor: Oliviero Plazzi Marzotto / Ava Burka
Cinematographer: Alicia Qian
Sound Designers: Delaney Czernikowski

Synopsis: After a pandemic has spread across the world, bringing chaos and death, Vojta, a thirty years old Czech hikikomori, has been living self-isolated in his apartment in Prague. Surrounded by delivery bags, pizza boxes, and dirty dishes, Vojta spends his days wearing just his underwear in the dark. He sits on his couch watching the discomforting news on the television while speaking to himself with three distinctive pitches while holding a frame. He also keeps avoiding his sister Pavla, not answering her calls. However, after 222 days of isolation, the delivery app crash, and the lack of food in his apartment, forces Vojta to leave his shelter. The city is deserted, and the sky overcast. The young hikikomori walks jaded and terrified toward the grocery store, wearing multiple masks and protections. While crossing the bridge that divides his apartment from the grocery store, Vojta starts hearing the nature resonating around him. His need to finally feel the sun and the wind on his face, after all that time, push Vojta to lower the suffocating masks and embrace that long forgotten feeling: freedom. The sound of the river, the leaves moved by the wind, and chirping birds allow him to breathe deeply finally.

That idyllic moment is abruptly interrupted by a loud sound coming from the other side of the bridge. A confused and exhausted Vojta turns toward what appears to be a human figure standing far away. Disturbed and unfamiliar with the sunlight after his long isolation, Vojta struggles to focus the figure. While he starts asking the figure if they know each other, Vojta sees that the mysterious man is approaching him. The figure begins walking and soon running aggressively toward the young hikikomori, shouting, "stay home, stay home". A confused and terrified Vojta, seeing the figure getting closer and closer, physically weak and uncoordinated, stumbles and falls violently on the ground. Stunned by the fall and with his eyes closed, Vojta feels two hands grabbing him from the collar and forcefully pulling him up. As he opens his eyes, the young hikikomori is shocked by the image revealed in front of him. The figure standing on top of him is a demoniac copy of himself; a livid and rabid Vojta, with white and iris-less eyes, who keeps roaring, "stay home, stay home, stay home".

Vojta finds himself back to his apartment, sitting on the couch while holding and staring at the frame. The space appears completely different. The pieces of furniture are the same, but the room is spotless and illuminated by the sun rays bursting in from the open shades. The news reporter talks about the upcoming events and celebrations for Liberation Day. Also, Vojta appears different; his face is clean and bright, and he's well dressed. We discover that the frame he's holding contains the picture of his parents. Vojta goes to the window and sees people walking on the streets, enjoying the sunny day. The ringing phone interrupts his doubts; his sister Pavla is calling him again. While watching his parents' picture, Vojta convinces himself to answer the call. Pavla, relieved and at the same time upset for his big brother's unreachability, tells him that she's finally back in town. She insists on meeting him outside while he keeps rejecting her. Pushed by his sister, Vojta explodes in tears, revealing that he still feels guilty and responsible for the death of their parents. He was the one who brought the infection home after going to a party. Pavla, moved by his big brother's breakdown, tells him the words that he's been waiting for since his parents' death: "it wasn't your fault". Released from his sense of guilt, Vojta decides to get out and meet her sister. However, while he's getting ready, a loud siren resounds in the room. Seeing the streets empty once again and hearing the news reporter talking about the pandemic, Vojta turns toward the television. There, in front of him and staring directly into the camera, the figure is looking at him, repeating the same mantra: "stay home, stay home, stay home". Shocked and stunned, Vojta starts to fall again into his dark reality. The light gets gloomy, the room dirty, and the young hikikomori returns to his first stage of messiness. However, while he seems lost in his despair, Vojta starts hearing from the distance his sister's voice: "it wasn't your fault". The figure mantra and Pavla's angelic voice begin to overlap until Vojta, hearing only her sister's words, is able to take action and switch off the television. That gesture allows him to return to the real world and take the first step to get his life back. Now, a new and stronger Vojta can finally leave his cage.

Undergraduate
opm213@nyu.edu

Oliviero is a director, a writer, and a Senior student at Tisch. He has been making films for years, growing up in Italy. He's had experience as an actor, studying at the New York Film Academy and working in theaters as an assistant director for three years before coming to NYU. During the last two years, Oliviero has been working and focusing on a unique style of psychological thrillers, concentrating on different forms of isolation and their effects. He developed this style during the pandemic and was able to shoot his first project of a trilogy, "Zůstan Doma"(Stay Home), a 35mm film shot in Prague during Spring 22. He's now working on his thesis film "Respect for Acting", the second of the trilogy, that will be shot in December in NYC.